The presence of various types of contaminants in the earth's atmosphere or in the internal atmosphere of a work place or other structure is a matter of world-wide concern. A great variety of adverse effects including global warming, transmission of contagious diseases and numerous long term health problems such as emphysema have been attributed to a wide variety of atmospheric contaminants. Atmospheric contaminants can be broadly divided into three categories based on their physical form, i.e., solid, liquid, or gaseous and then in some of these cases further subdivided into organic, inorganic and biological. For example, harmful inorganic vapors present in the atmosphere include SO2, nitrogen oxides and mercury. Inorganic solid contaminants include cement dust and ammonium sulfate. Examples of organic vapors include chlorofluorocarbons and various aromatic hydrocarbons. Particularly at lower temperatures, many even relatively low molecular weight organic compounds can be present in the atmosphere in liquid or even solid particulate form. Of particular concern are atmospheric liquid and solid biological materials (“bioaerosols”)
The Bioaerosol Problem
Bioaerosols are airborne particles consisting of, or derived from living organisms such as e.g., bacteria, viruses, molds, fungi, pollens, dust mites insect remains and pet dander. They have both natural and anthropogenic sources and are ubiquitous in the earth's tropospheric boundary layer. Bioaerosols are found, for example, in the workplace, in houses, in medical facilities, in manufacturing operations, in dairy or other animal housing facilities, in sites of sludge application, in recycling and composting plants, in sanitary landfills, and in sewage plants. Unlike most common non-biological origin atmospheric aerosols, airborne bioaerosols can cause immediate disease, allergic reactions and/or respiratory problems. Bioaerosols are also particularly feared as potential biowarfare and terrorist agents.
Current methods that measure aerosol particle size distribution in real time provide insufficient information about particle types (i.e., inorganic vs. organic vs. biological) and are not able to identify specific microorganisms. Although efforts to develop field useable instruments for the detection and identification of airborne biological particles have accelerated during the last several years, improved methods for characterizing all types of aerosols, particularly bioaerosols, are urgently needed. There is a need to quantify airborne microorganisms for among other things: (i) the biotechnology industry, (ii) the evaluation of indoor and outdoor air quality, (iii) investigations of infectious disease outbreaks, and (iv) agricultural health investigations. Today, there is a major technological void in bioaerosol sampling techniques. To determine the sources and effects of bioaerosols on human and animal health, a need exists for an instrument that is capable of accurately and reliably measuring aerosol optical properties while simultaneously discriminating between biological and non-biological aerosols.
Biowarfare and Bioterrorism
Bioaerosols represent a particularly dangerous class of biological weapons. As such, methods of detecting and characterizing bioaerosols are greatly needed. As already indicated, there currently does not exist any accurate real-time method for the detection and identification of atmospheric and/or indoor air biological particles. Present real-time aerosol detection methods provide only a general indication of size-distribution and provide virtually no information on particle type.
Considering the enormous threat posed by bioaerosols to the population at large, fieldable methods for detecting and characterizing these hazards are urgently needed. Instruments that operate in the field must be able to withstand mechanical vibration and shock, produce accurate and reliable results without the need for manual calibration or expert attendance, and preferably operate without consumables.
Aerosols and Climate Change
In recent decades global warming has taken terrestrial temperatures to their highest levels in at least the past millennium. While the causes of global warming continue to be debated, there is considerable evidence that atmospheric aerosols play an important role. Because most aerosols reflect sunlight back into space, they also have a “direct” cooling effect by reducing the amount of solar radiation that reaches the surface of the Earth. The magnitude of this reverse radiation (known as “radioactive forcing”) depends on the size and composition of the aerosol particles, as well as their optical properties. It is thought that aerosol cooling may at least partially offset the expected global warming that is attributed to increases in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting from human activity. The size of these various effects, is, however, not well understood, mainly due to the lack of accurate optical data. An International Panel on Climate Change has identified radiative forcing due to the presence of aerosols as one of the most uncertain components of climate change models and as a topic urgently in need of further research.
There is therefore a pressing need for an analytical instrument having the following capabilities: i) the ability to substantially simultaneously detect the presence in the atmosphere of inorganic, organic and bioaerosols; and ii) distinguish bioaerosols from non-biological particulates and dispersed liquids (organic and/or inorganic) and also to identify certain specific bioaerosols. To accomplish these multiple tasks the instrument should be able to do the following: 1) perform extinction and Rayleigh scattering measurements to estimate the quantity and size distribution of liquid and solid particles (i.e., inorganic, organic and biological) present in the atmospheric sample: and 2) measure laser induced fluorescence and/or Raman scattering of bioaerosols to facilitate identification. It should be noted that although fluorescence can be induced in certain organic compounds, such fluorescence is normally much weaker than that of biological compounds and also the fluorescence spectra of organic and biological materials are significantly different. The difference between the quantity of aerosol indicated by procedures 1 and 2 is therefore also a measure of the inorganic and organic (non-biological) liquid and solid atmospheric contaminants. Accuracy is, of course, enhanced if measurements 1 and 2 are performed substantially simultaneously. In addition, if possible, the instrument should be able to perform Rayleigh scattering and fluorescence at several wavelengths to permit estimation of particle size distribution. Likewise, the Raman spectrum of many compounds are unique and frequently specific organic or biological components can be detected by analyzing the Raman scattering of complex mixtures including aerosols. The distinction between Raman scattering and Rayleigh scattering is that the latter is at the same wavelength as the incident radiation while Raman scattering is at a longer wavelength (Stokes) or higher frequency (anti-Stokes). A reference to “scattering” herein, without further qualification, is to be construed as Rayleigh scattering.
Designing an instrument that can accurately and rapidly perform these multiple measurements is technically challenging. In particular, building an apparatus that exploits the intrinsic fluorescence and/or Raman emissions of bioaerosol particles for their detection and classification is challenging for several reasons. First, the particles of interest may be present in very low concentration in a dominant background. Average fluorescence or Raman spectra accumulated for a population of aerosol particles will frequently yield little or no information about the few particles of specific interest, i.e., single-particle spectra are required. Second, fluorescence signals are generally weak because individual particles generally contain only a few picograms of material. Additionally, only a small fraction of the mass of most biological particles consists of fluorophores. Likewise, Raman scattering by its nature is weaker than the illuminating radiation. Third, particles are generally dispersed nonuniformly in the air (their concentration fluctuations follow the Kolmogorov spectrum of atmospheric turbulence), and they must be detected at random times as they are carried by a stream of air through an optical cell. Fourth, an optimal detector must be able to excite particles in the ultraviolet where most biological molecules (and hence biological particles) fluoresce to a significant extent. Ultraviolet laser sources are generally costly and have a relatively low energy output. In many environments the dominant background particles are nonbiological so that a minority concentration of bioaerosols must be differentiated from these nonbiological particles. However, because the UV-excited fluorescence is typically weaker from non-biological as compared to biological particles, the un-dispersed fluorescence intensity can be used to differentiate between these two types of particles. In the case of Raman spectroscopy, most biological particles show their strongest emission when excited by radiation in the visible and near UV region (100–700 nm), so an optimal detection instrument must be able to provide incident radiation in this wavelength range.
We have developed an instrument using the principles of cavity enhanced optical detection which is capable of performing the above-indicated multiple measurements i.e., extinction coefficient, scattering and fluorescence and/or Raman scattering. In addition, our preferred instrument is uniquely compact and portable, and has low power consumption. These features are highly advantageous since much monitoring of atmospheric pollutants must take place by aircraft at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet.
The operation of our instrument, which is also readily integrated into an indoor air quality monitoring system, involves the following steps:                1) Determine the extinction coefficient by measuring the ring down time using filtered air (i.e., an atmospheric sample free from any liquid or solid particles). This will provide the “background” extinction coefficient of the instrument (i.e., any absorption due solely to gases present in the air and also any scattering or absorption due to the instrument mirrors and intra-cavity interfaces).        2) Measure the extinction coefficient of the aerosol containing (unfiltered) atmospheric sample. The difference between results 1 and 2 provides the extinction due to the aerosols present in the sample. Although not essential, simultaneous measurement of scattering and extinction provides enhanced accuracy.        3) Measure scattering since extinction minus scattering equals the absorption by the liquid and/or solid aerosol particles.        4) Measure scattering simultaneously at several different wavelengths. This provides particle size information since scattering is a function of particle size and is proportional to 1/λ4         5) Obtain the fluorescent and/or Raman spectra to permit differentiation between biological and non-biological samples. Since the strength of the fluorescence of biological particles is significantly greater than that of organic and inorganic particles, by appropriate choice of the incident laser wavelength (near UV of 100 to 400 nm, or visible 400–700 nm, is particularly suitable) one can virtually eliminate any significant fluorescence by the non-biological constituents of the sample. In addition, a plot of the fluorescence spectra permits identification of certain bioaerosol components. For Raman detection incident radiation in the 400 to 700 nm range (visible) is especially suitable.        
As previously indicated, the extinction coefficient of the aerosol containing sample is a measure of the combined effects of scattering by the cavity mirrors and the liquid and solid particulate content of the sample plus absorption by the solid, liquid and gaseous sample components. If scattering by the sample alone is then determined, the difference between extinction and scattering is equal to absorption by the aerosol constituents present. Finally, fluorescence or Raman measurement permits estimation of the biological component of the total liquid and solid particulates, which can frequently be identified by their Raman spectrum.
Optical detection is the determination of the presence and/or concentration of one or more target species present in a sample by illuminating the sample with optical radiation and measuring optical absorption, induced fluorescence, and/or optical scattering by the sample. Optical detection has a wide variety of applications, and a correspondingly wide variety of optical detection methods are known. Cavity enhanced optical detection entails the use of a passive optical resonator, also referred to as a cavity, to improve the performance of an optical detector. Cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (CEAS), sometimes called integrated cavity output spectroscopy (ICOS), and cavity ring down spectroscopy (CRDS) comprise the most widely used cavity enhanced optical detection technology. Cavity enhanced optical detection, either CEAS or CRDS can be used for solid, liquid, aerosol, or gaseous samples.
The intensity of single-mode radiation trapped within a passive optical resonator decays exponentially over time, with a time constant τ, which is often referred to as the ring-down time. In practice, it is desirable to ensure that only a single resonator mode has an appreciable amplitude, since excitation of multiple resonator modes leads to multi-exponential radiation intensity decay (i.e., multiple time constants), which significantly complicates the interpretation of measurement results. The ring-down time τ depends on the cavity round trip length and on the total round-trip optical loss within the cavity, including loss due to absorption and/or scattering by one or more target species within a sample positioned inside the cavity. Thus, measurement of the ring-down time of an optical resonator containing a target species provides spectroscopic information on the target species. Both CRDS and CEAS are based on such a measurement of τ.
In CRDS, an optical source is usually coupled to the resonator in a mode-matched manner, so that the radiation trapped within the resonator is substantially in a single spatial mode. The coupling between the source and the resonator is then interrupted (e.g., by blocking the source radiation, or by altering the spectral overlap between the source radiation and the excited resonator mode). A detector typically is positioned to receive a portion of the radiation leaking from the resonator, which decays in time exponentially with a time constant τ. The time-dependent signal from this detector is processed to determine τ (e.g., by sampling the detector signal and applying a suitable curve-fitting method to a decaying portion of the sampled signal).
Single spatial mode excitation of the resonator is also usually employed in CEAS, (sometimes called integrated cavity output spectroscopy (ICOS)), but CEAS differs from CRDS in that the wavelength of the source is swept (i.e., varied over time), so that the source wavelength coincides briefly with the resonant wavelengths of a succession of resonator modes. A detector is positioned to receive radiation leaking from the resonator, and the signal from the detector is integrated for a time comparable to the time it takes the source wavelength to scan across a sample resonator mode of interest. The resulting detector signal is proportional to τ, so the variation of this signal with source wavelength provides spectral information on the sample. Note that CEAS entails a relative measurement of τ.
In cavity enhanced optical detection, the measured ring-down time depends on the total round trip loss within the optical resonator. Absorption and/or scattering by target species within the cavity normally accounts for the major portion of the total round trip loss, while parasitic loss (e.g., mirror losses and reflections from intracavity interfaces) accounts for the remainder of the total round trip loss. The sensitivity of cavity enhanced optical detection improves as the parasitic loss is decreased, since the total round trip loss depends more sensitively on the target species concentration as the parasitic loss is decreased. Accordingly, both the use of mirrors with very low loss (i.e., a reflectivity greater than 99.99 percent), and the minimization of intracavity interface reflections are important for cavity enhanced optical detection.
Several recently published treatises, including the references cited therein, cover most currently reported aspects of CRDS and CEAS technology: “Cavity-Ringdown Spectroscopy” by K. W. Busch and M. A. Busch, ACS Symposium Series No. 720, 1999 ISBN 0-8426-3600-3 and “Cavity Enhanced Spectroscopy” R. Peeters, Katholieke Univeristeit Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 2001, ISBN 90-9017628-8. CEAS is also discussed in a recent article entitled “Incoherent Broad-band Cavity-enhanced Absorption Spectroscopy” by S. Fiedler, A. Hese and A, Ruth Chemical Physics Letters 371 (2003) 284–294. However, none of these references teaches the simultaneous measurement of Rayleigh scattering, extinction coefficient and fluorescence and/or Raman scattering.